How to get business on Footy Final day

There is one good thing to come out of St Kilda and Collingwood going for a Grand Final rematch after their draw last Saturday, and that is for businesses to think how they can better attract customers this weekend if they were dead quiet last Saturday. It’s their second chance to think if they should screen the game on a huge projector screen to attract the footy crowd (if they didn’t do so last Saturday) or come up with some promotion to attract the non-footy crowd.

We have a few suggestions that may be good for cafes and restaurants to help them avoid feeling like all their customers have deserted them for footy fever the coming weekend.

Target tourists – Most tourists wouldn’t even have a clue what footy is about, so why not target the tourist dollar? They do have to find a place to eat during their stay so run an attractive promotion or discount to get them in.

Target non-footy fans – Well, they could be anyone, but they’re most likely to be people that suffer from a different or equally influential sports fever, such as soccer. Maybe it’s worth running a soccer themed event on the day to attract soccer fanatics. As far as we know, there are definitely more than a handful of them out there. The weekend also coincides with the opening of the Delhi Commonwealth Games, but given its recent slate of bad press, it might not be such a good idea to run a Comm Games themed promotion.

Beat them at their own game – The last resort is to set up a screen even larger than the business next door to broadcast the game.

The last tip above does have some drawbacks. If the cafe or restaurant is of the arty inclination that doesn’t usually attract the footy going crowd, it may damage the reputation of the venue if it’s seen by their arty regulars to be selling out just for that one day by jumping on the footy bandwagon.

Also, from what we’ve seen on Chapel Street last Saturday, some cafes that were screening the game were experiencing problems with drunk patrons, so it’s worth evaluating the pros and cons of submitting to footy fever.